Tag Archives: #fogisland

Swan Song

Posted on by eddieatwell
One of the mute swans we saw in Saltworks Cove

One of the mute swans we saw in Saltworks Cove

Winter break has arrived, and I’m looking forward to getting out on the water a lot with Dad and Mom, though we’re probably not going till the wind lies down. A gale is blowing today after the snowstorm. Vacation means doing a lot of gear work in the barn. I don’t mind. I do think about not going to Costa Rica, though. I have to laugh when I think of Briggs surfing.

The weekend’s been snowy, and I like that. Yesterday Dad had to go into town to the bank, and he told me I was free for the rest of the day. I was going to take my skiff over to the barrier beach to see what might have washed up in the recent blows. I was walking down the dock when I saw Hallie Ryder rowing right into the cove.

She got up to the dock and let her boat drift.

Hallie (looking up at me): Did you hear about the snowy owl that was spotted over by Saltworks Cove?

Me (wishing I had): No. When was that?

Hallie: A couple of days ago. Want to go look for it?

Me (my heart doing a little dance): Sure. Want to take my skiff?

Hallie: Let’s take my boat. The outboard might scare it.

I climbed in and she rowed us out of the cove, around the point past her place, and toward Saltworks Cove, which is like a little bay with a neck of land that’s all dunes on one side and a huge salt marsh on the other.

We really didn’t talk much, just about the snowflakes chasing each like they were playing a game, and how we were glad to be on vacation, stuff like that. Mostly we listened to the creak of the oars in the oarlocks and the gurgle and splash of the boat’s wake and watched the snowflakes vanish into the green black face of the water. Or at least I did.

We rowed outside the neck of land, scanning the dunes for the owl, and then we went into the cove and rowed around there. We didn’t see the owl, but we did spot two swans, brilliant white against the dark water even in the snow.

Hallie (shipping the oars and watching the swans swim along the edge of the marsh): Mute swans. They mate for life. But they’re supposed to be mean, too. Get too close to them and they come after you and try to peck you. They’re strong enough to break your arm.

Me: They always surprise me. They’re so bright.

Halle: Yeah. They aren’t native to our area. They were brought to Long Island back in the 1800s. They spread from there.

The wavelets kissed the hull of the boat as we drifted and the flakes settled on Hallie’s wool cap and ponytail. The cold air made two red blossoms appear on her cheeks.

Me: Maybe the owl moved somewhere else, like the barrier beach. Want to go out to take a look tomorrow if the weather’s good?

She turned to me and smiled.

Hallie: Sounds good to me. Let’s leave early.

Oh, yeah: I have something I need to tell you. Mom said that she wants me to start spending more time on my schoolwork than on writing about Fog Island. She said I’d served my sentence long ago. My grades haven’t been exactly what you’d call aces, either, so she said school comes first. So I guess this is it. When I told Dad I was writing the last piece, he said it was my “swan song,” which was kind of funny given that Hallie and I had just seen a pair of them.

So goodbye for now, and thanks for reading about my island.

One last thing: Mom and Dad got a letter from Mr. Moodie, the guy who wrote the book about Briggs and me. He said he has a new book coming out called A Sailor’s Valentine and Other Stories. It’s not for kids, but it is about being on the water, so how bad could it be?

Snow Light

Posted on by eddieatwell
Snow in our front door

Snow in our front doorway

School was closed on Friday because of the storm, and we spent the morning getting extra lines on Marie A and filling the kerosene heaters in case we lost power. For the early part of the morning, the sky was lead gray, but not a flake fell. You could see the wind getting up, though: The treetops scissored back and forth and the cove churned with whitecaps.

I was hauling firewood into the mudroom—we don’t usually bring it inside till we’re going to burn it, but Dad wanted a dry supply—when I saw the first flakes come down. That was around ten. They were specks, tiny and light, and by the time I got done with the wood the ground that had been bare was chalky with snow.

The whole afternoon Dad and I worked on gear in the barn, the woodstove cranking away. I watched the snow through the window filling up the woods, and soon the window itself was covered with gray-white snow like feathers. I like the light you only see in a snow storm that’s soft and dusty like a moth’s wings.

Dad (sitting in his old chair, splicing some trawl line—he’s amazing with rope): There’s a poem I’ve always liked by Wallace Stevens that has a couple of lines in it that remind me of today: It was evening all afternoon. It was snowing and it was going to snow.

Me: I like that. The light does look like evening.

The wind was beginning to moan and the light was dimming, especially now that the window was covered with snow. The lights in the barn flickered.

Dad: Listen to that wind. We’ll have thirty-foot waves offshore before you know it. Let’s go up to the house before we lose power.

Between shoveling the front walkway and keeping a path on the dock open and riding with Dad when he plowed the drive, the evening turned to night fast, and the snow was so thick in the air it looked like waving curtains, and the wind went from gale to hurricane force in a couple of gusts.

I didn’t sleep much. I never do in a storm. The gusts kept rocking the house, and making that deep moan and roar, and I kept getting up to look out the window— the peephole of it that was clear of snow, that is—to see if the dock light was still on.

When I got up, snow was still coming down hard, and the world outside was the inside of an igloo.

Mom (drinking coffee at the kitchen table with Dad): Miracles do happen. Never lost the power, even in this blow.

I couldn’t wait to get outside. I suited up, grabbed the shovel, and opened the front door—and found snow piled almost halfway up the height of the doorframe.

Dad (standing beside me): I guess we’ve got out work cut out for us today.

Me: Yeah. It’s snowing, and it’s going to snow.

 

Home Waters

Posted on by eddieatwell
Codfish

Codfish

I’ve been tempted to say yes to go to Costa Rica with Briggs over winter vacation. I brought the subject up with Mom and Dad when we were steaming home after bringing the boat to the town dock so Dad could get a guy to look at the radar, which was acting up again.

We were all standing in the pilothouse, looking out the windows as we idled past the wharfs. Dad was steering. When I mentioned that Briggs’s parents were going to foot the bill, Mom and Dad glanced at each other and both raised their eyebrows.

Mom: That was very generous of them. But if you were to go, we wouldn’t allow someone else to pay your way.

Dad: Not exactly the right time to add another expense. Maybe if the price had gone up more.

I kind of expected that they’d feel that way. Hey—even I felt that way a little bit. To tell you the truth, as much as I wanted to go see what Costa Rica was like—Briggs even mentioned in another note that we could go surfing—I felt torn about taking off on vacation and leaving Mom and Dad to tend to the gear and everything else. I mean, I like doing that work, too.

So when they weren’t too hot on the idea, I was relieved.

Mom: We don’t want to disappoint you and Briggs, but maybe this isn’t the best time. Besides, you’d have to go off-island to get your passport. You know he’s always welcome here, and so maybe he can spend some time on the island over the summer.

I told them that I understood. When I got into bed that night, I started thinking that nothing in the world seemed better to me than heading out in our boat in my home waters. I began to feel lousy for those hook fishermen on the island who were probably going to be put out of business because of the new limits on codfish—right after everyone was saying how much the codfish stocks had bounced back. They were probably either going to have to switch the kind of fish they went after or find another line of work.

I dreamed about that 100-foot wave that guy surfed down off Portugal, and I imagined Marie A trying to steam up the face of the wave, slowing and slowing as the wave got steeper and steeper until she started falling backwards and I jolted awake.

Wow. Maybe the thought of surfing scared me more than I thought it would. I sure would miss giving it a shot with Briggs in Costa Rica. I had to chuckle just thinking about him on a surfboard. Maybe if he came here over the summer, we could try it out on one of the Fog Island beaches.

Ice Boat

Posted on by eddieatwell
Arctic sea smoke off Malabar Island

Arctic sea smoke off Malabar Island

Mom and I got to head out on a trip with Dad, and boy was it a cold one, one of the coldest I’ve ever been on.

When we first shoved off, arctic sea smoke was blowing off the water, and it lasted the whole way out. Sea smoke is steam that forms when the icy polar air like the kind that’s been gripping us interacts with the relatively warmer saltwater of the ocean. Warmer: Right. The water temperature is in the thirties, but the air temperature was about zero.

Even out by Thrumcap, platters of ice had formed in the lee side of the island, and the island looked like it was floating above the wisps of steam. Dad said he hadn’t seen that happen in a couple of winters.

The air was so cold that the spray from the bow plunging through the chop—the wind kicked up to about twenty knots—started freezing on the deck and rails and antennae and hauler and anything else that got wet.

We spent most of the time hauling gear off the northern point of Malabar, and by the time we were done with our last trawl, the ice had built up in cakes on the bow.

Dad (calling to me as I tossed the last buoy back over as we reset the gear): Okay. Grab the bat and go forward to knock some of that ice off.

He slipped the boat out of gear and I took the baseball bat to the foredeck.

Dad (leaning out the hauling door while I started pounding the ice): Careful you don’t hit the boat.

Easy for him to say. I was trying to balance myself on an icy deck and chop the ice without slipping and going into the drink. At least Dad wasn’t steaming full bore to the next set. The boat was only rolling on the swells as she idled, which was enough of a high-wire act for me, anyway.

When I got done, I crawled back to the pilothouse and Mom handed me a big mug of hot chowder. She makes the best clam chowder in the entire universe. You get about fifty quahogs in every spoonful.

Me (holding the mug in both hands while Dad throttled up and we started bucking through the waves): Glad I don’t have to do that every day.

Dad: Me, too. But you did a good job. Worst thing in the world is to let your boat ice up. I’ve heard too many stories of boats going over with even a small amount of icing. But I guess we’re not going have to worry about it next week. Forecast says the arctic air is moving out. We might even have rain by the middle of the week. How’s that sound to you?

I couldn’t answer him. I could only shrug. I was spooning in another mouthful of chowder, and to be honest, I kind of liked the real cold weather. I felt like Shackleton or Peary or Amundesen or Nansen.

But what can you do? The weather is the weather, and it does what it does.

Me (finally able to speak): I don’t know. I like the cold.

Mom (laughing): Don’t you worry. We’ll have plenty more of that.

Ghost Trap

Posted on by eddieatwell
Narwhal

Narwhal

Near zero on day, sixty the next (almost), then snow again, then almost sixty again with forty knot gusts: We’ve had the usual wild swings in weather over the last couple of weeks. But Dad said he thought the January thaw seems to last longer and arrive earlier every year.

Dad: It used to last a day or two. Now we get a week of above-freezing weather every January.

But cold weather made a comeback, and we got one of those arctic snows with flakes so tiny they look like white dust motes.

I took my skiff out after school one day when Dad was still out hauling gear. I was going to go out to the barrier beach but the wind was blowing out of the north, so I sneaked out past Saltworks Cove (and gave a glance at Ryder’s place but didn’t see anyone) to head out to the Cut since it was in the lee.

The ride over was a cold, wet one, and I was glad to beach the skiff and trot over the dune to warm up. I decided to walk along the beach to see what I might find (and to keep my blood pumping—my eyes were even watering in the cold).

You can never tell what you might find on a beach, and that’s why beachcombing is of my favorite things to do—after being on the water, that is.

You find stuff you’re not happy about finding sometimes, too: Dad told me that he found lifejackets with the name of a motoryacht that was lost with all hands washed up on the barrier beach when he was about my age. He’s also found fishing rods, plastic chairs, oars, rope, sheets of plywood and other lumber, floats, anchors, Styrofoam coolers—even a G.I. Joe and a yellow rubber duck. He keeps “the good stuff” in the barn.

Dead ahead I saw a rectangular object in the wave wash, and I thought: That looks just like a treasure chest.

What was I thinking? When I got up to it, I saw that it was a trap, warp, and buoy—and that it was actually one of ours that must have parted in one of the recent blows.

Dad would be happy about that.

Talk about getting warmed up: Once I cleared it of the old bait and weed and crabs, I hauled it back over the dunes, and I was sweating by the time I loaded it aboard the skiff.

Dad was finishing cleaning up the boat when I got in.

Dad: Good thing you found that. A trap can keep fishing and fishing—a ghost trap, just catching lobsters and everything for no good reason.

I told him that I wished it was a treasure chest instead, and he laughed.

Dad: You find all kinds of stuff washed up, stuff you’re not supposed to find, sometimes, too, like the bales of marijuana floating off Thrumcap one year. Some of the other fisherman grabbed them and turned them in. I steered clear of them. Sometimes you’re better off staying out of someone else’s business. Crazy, though, what people will try to make money at. I just read about some guys on the mainland you got caught trafficking in narwhal tusks. Narwhal tusks! That’s like killing unicorns, for crying out loud. They’re actually related to dolphins.

Me: I wish we had narwhals around here. I’d sure like to see one of those things splashing around in the waves.

Dad: If they did, you’d know one thing would be certain. Someone would be trying to separate it from its tusk.

Marooned

Posted on by eddieatwell
Northern lapwing, marooned here by Sandy

Northern lapwing, marooned here by Sandy

I heard about some plover-like birds from Europe that Sandy swept all the way over to our shores.  They were spotted on the mainland in different places, and two were spotted in one of the ponds right here on Fog Island.

I hadn’t had a chance to go look for them, but the other day when I was getting off the bus with Hallie Ryder, I got an idea.

Me (walking up beside her—and yes, my heart started racing faster than an outboard at full throttle): Did you hear about those birds from Europe? The Gazette said they’re still at Hawksnest Pond.

Hallie (shrugging into her backpack): Yeah. I wanted to go see them.

Me (not believing my good luck): Me too.

We walked along toward where her road was. I knew I had to say something—fast.

Me (blurting): Northern lapwings. Want to go see if they’re still there?

Halle (still walking): When?

Me: Tomorrow?

Hallie (giving me a smile): Sure.

Me: I mean if I don’t have to head out with Dad.

Hallie: Sure.

Me: I’m not sure if they’ll still be there, but going out there might be worth it if they are.

Me (to myself): Shut up. You have to know when to shut up.

Hallie: What time? Is early okay?

Me: Yup. Seven, eight?

Hallie: I have to help my father in the morning. Let’s say six-thirty. Daybreak.

Me: Sounds good. We can take my skiff.

Hallie: Rowing over there would be the best. We might spook them with the outboard. But I don’t have the time. So let’s go in the skiff.

I levitated home. I had to wonder if I was the one who really did the inviting. I got lucky, too: Dad said he wanted to let the traps soak an extra day, so we wouldn’t be going until Sunday. I felt guilty about feeling so excited about not going.

I was up at my usual time and I buzzed over to her place in the rain at first light. She was waiting at the end of her dock in her orange oilskins, her hood up but some of her hair curling out from the bill. She had a backpack with her.

Hallie (climbing in):  If it hadn’t warmed up, we’d probably be iced in.

Me (as she sat down in the forward seat): All set?

She nodded and I shoved us away from the dock and throttled up.

Hawksnest Pond was a brackish kettle pond out toward the break on West Fog. We followed the shore since the wind was out of the southeast and the lee of the land kept the waves down. Farther out you could see the chop in the fog and rain.

When we got near the pond, we beached the boat and climbed up over the dune.

Hallie pulled field glasses out of her backpack and scanned the water. The shore was open and grassy on one side. On the other thick scrub came right down to the water, and behind it was a pinewoods with a couple of nests high up. No wonder the place was called what it was.

I looked everywhere on the pond and only saw some buffleheads in the far corner.

Hallie: The ones on the mainland weren’t expected to survive. They eat seeds and the snow covers their food sources.

Me: Can’t they fly back to Europe?

Hallie (lowering her glasses and wiping them off, then raising them again): Their wings are rounded, so they’re not really built for long-distance flying.  They’ll probably be stuck here forever if they survive the winter.

Me: Marooned on a desert island. Do you want to take a closer look?

Hallie: Sure.

We trooped down through the beach grass toward the pond. We circled the whole thing.

Hallie: Maybe we scared them away.

Me: Maybe we should row back out here next time. Like you said. Or look in a different place. They might have moved.

Hallie: Good idea.

We didn’t spot a single lapwing that wet morning.

Not that I cared.

I would be going lapwing hunting again.

With Hallie.

 

Days of Ice

Posted on by eddieatwell
Marie A in ice

Marie A in ice

The temperature sank to two degrees the other night, and zero the next night, and the cove froze right over. That doesn’t happen too often.

Dad and I were out on the boat before I headed off to school. He was warming up the engine and watching the ice through the pilothouse windows in the pure light of daybreak. The pilothouse was toasty because he had the old school bus heater cranking away in the bulkhead. I leaned as close to it as I could.

Dad: That ice has been building up over the last couple of days. But believe it or not, it’s not as tough on the hull as windowpane ice—the real thin stuff. It acts like a thin blade if you hit it right with a wooden hull.

Me: Are you heading out?

Dad: In a bit. We’ll have to put Marie A in the icebreaking business. But I’ve seen much thicker ice in here, so thick I thought we might lose the boat.

Me: When was that?

Dad: Way back before your time, just when Laurie was born. The whole cove froze up and the ice just kept getting thicker and thicker and buckled in plates right against the hull.

Me: What happened?

Dad: Your mother and I had to get out on the ice to chop around the hull to relieve some of the pressure. A sou’easter blew in for a couple of days, though, and that sent the temperature up and moved the ice out. Should have seen it piled on the beach across the cove. Looked like Antarctica around here.

Me: A couple of winters ago I remember the ice lying halfway out to Tern Island.

Dad: That’s right. That was a cold one. But winters sure aren’t as cold as they used to be. I just read a story in the paper about how even ice rinks near the Arctic Circle need to put in refrigeration units because the ice isn’t forming until January when it used to be thick in October.

Me: Was it colder when you were my age?

Dad (nodding): I sure seem to remember longer, colder winters. Now you just hear people whining the minute the temperature dips below freezing for a day—and you’d think the weather forecasters all believe we’re supposed be living in Florida.

I’d touched a nerve: Television forecasters bugged Dad so much he left the room when the weather came on. He said that even though NOAA was more likely to give you a bum steer than not, at least their forecasters didn’t editorialize about conditions.

Dad: The old stories sure made the winters sound colder. One story my old man told me about was one winter that was so cold the whole bay and harbor iced up—and the ice extended right out to Thrumcap and Malabar. This was in the late 1800s. People took wagons out to Malabar to scavenge for driftwood for fires because most of Fog Island had been denuded of burnable wood.

Me: Really? How could they get a wagon over sea ice?

Dad: The stories have it that the cold was so intense even the sea ice was smooth, not jumbled up the way it usually is. But I’m not so sure: You still have swells, and that’s what causes the ice to be so rough. Sometimes these stories get a bit on the tall side.

Me: Still, can you imagine walking out to Malabar?

Dad (chuckling): Sounds like a fool’s errand no matter how cold it got.

Me: Yeah. What would happen if you got halfway out and the ice decided to drift?

Dad shook his head, then checked his watch.

Dad: Speaking of drifting, time’s getting away from us. You better shove off.

I looked out the hauling door window at the snow-covered dock in the dawn light. The sky was ice blue beyond the dark row of firs and a hint of cold pink light touched the sky in the east. A shiver came over me when I thought about stepping back outside.

Me: Okay. Sure wish I could head out with you instead.

Dad (smiling): Soon enough, Eddie. Soon enough.

A Week of Weather

Posted on by eddieatwell
Bufflehead

Bufflehead

Dad never did end up rigging my skiff for scalloping. He said the small up-tick in lobster prices was like an early Christmas present.

Dad: Not exactly a bonanza, but enough to keep the traps in the water.

Of course, then the weather decided to flex its muscles, right during my week off from school, so that after Christmas Day, when we had light snow all morning, we only got out once before the big blow that started as snow and then turned to rain.

And boy did that rain come down—cascades of it that turned our sand drive into a river of slush and rushing runoff. I made the mistake of wearing my hiking shoes when I went out to the barn to help Dad with some trap repairs. They were billed as waterproof, but I guess when you’re ankle-deep in slush and slime nothing but fishing boots will keep you dry. My boots were on the boat—safe and warm and dry.

The rain and drizzle ended as snow as fine as smoke as the new system came through—a big nor’wester that blew the storm out to sea and brought in cold, clear air that was so transparent you could see the Fog Island lighthouse out on the barrier beach from as far away as the Cut, where I went for a hike in the wind and dazzling sunshine. Even the bay was filled was whitecaps. Normally I would have taken my skiff but the water was too rough.

Some of the land out that way was donated to the Town of Fog Island by a woman named Cecilia Holloway. You can walk out the neck of land through a system of paths lacing their way through the woods and out to the place called Holloway’s Hive. It’s been reinforced with boulders so it can withstand the pounding of the seas and the hard winter blows.

The day I went out there, the water on the lee side of the neck was calm and blue and slick as metal, the sun so warm I took off my watch cap. A raft of bufflehead ducks paddled around feeding, seeming to enjoy themselves in the calm.

When I got over the top of the neck, the wind caught me, and brought the temperature down so fast I felt like I’d opened a walk-in freezer. I pulled my cap back on and went out the narrow path, which climbed up slabs of granite to the top of the Hive.

What a fantastic view from the top of the Hive: You can see to the Cut and the barrier beach and way over to Saggy Neck and all the way to Fog Island light. The wind was so cold my eyes kept watering. I loved listening to the constant crash of the waves on the rocks and the squeal of the gulls veering past. The whole world of Fog Island seemed to belong to me and me only.

When I turned around to go, I saw someone way back on the path, heading my way.

Now, call me crazy, but sometimes taking a hike by yourself is about the best time you can have, unless you’re on the water by yourself.

So I thought I wouldn’t let someone spoil my solitude, and I hustled back down the granite steps and down the narrow neck and then ducked through the dwarf trees to the wooden steps leading to the beach on the lee side. I climbed over the rocks and trotted along the sand around to the cove, which was out of the wind.

But then I got to wondering who that might have been.

Maybe it was someone I would have wanted to bump into–share my solitude with.

So I circled back through the woods and found a hiding spot overlooking the windward beach and pathway leading to the Hive.

The shadows started lengthening and the temperature kept dropping and the wind kept blowing and still the person didn’t return from the top of the Hive.

Whoever it had been must have taken a different route home.

My toes started freezing because my hiking shoes were still damp from the drenching they’d gotten a few days before.

So I turned for home myself, a feeling that maybe Hallie Ryder had been walking the same trail I was nagging away at me.

Next time I saw her, I’d ask her. Maybe.

And I had to stop hiding and just find out if she wanted to go together to the Hive the next time, or any other place, for that matter.

Oh, yeah: The next afternoon, a snowstorm moved in, and it came on fast and furious.

Such was the week of weather we had, which was great for those of us who like ups and downs in what Mother Nature throws at us, but not so great for getting out on the water and catching bugs.

Bungalows, Bundchen, Brady, and Brant

Posted on by eddieatwell
brant

Brant at our cove entrance

I had been wondering what was up with Briggs since I hadn’t heard from him in a while. I guess we were on the same wavelength because the next day this letter was waiting for me went I got home from school.

Dear Eddie,

Much time has elapsed since we’ve corresponded, and for that I apologize. I lay the blame squarely at the feet of my school, which has been draconian in its punishing academic workloads. I yearn for the simple joys of a good book to read at my leisure and a comfortable bed in a room of my own without the noisome antics of an immature roommate disturbing me every tick of the clock.

But enough grousing. The holidays have arrived at last and I write this note to you from home in Bedford Hills, where we are preparing for our trip to southern climes: We will spend Christmas in the bungalow we bought in Costa Rica. Yes, the paterfamilias was so enamored of the Nicoya Peninsula that he acquired a hacienda overlooking the sea—the Pacific Ocean, that is. The closest settlement is a village called Malpais, which means Bad Land because all the rivers dry up in the summer.  Some elite resorts have sprung up nearby where the likes of Gisele Bundchen and Tom Brady might be glimpsed, but our place is still in a remote spot.

In any event, I do look forward to shuffling barefoot across the tile floors to gaze over the beach and the emerald breakers rolling in, the aforementioned book in my grasp, ready to be perused—and a roommate nowhere in sight.  Down there, iguanas cling to the palm trees, Eddie—real iguanas that might as well be modern-day dinosaurs.  Pelicans and frigatebirds patrol the waves. Monkeys rule the jungle.

Let me leave you with a proposition. Would you perhaps be interested in joining us during February winter break at our Costa Rican hideaway? I understand the fishing can be nothing short of tremendous. We could go horseback riding, as I did last time I was there (and discovered that not all horses are as evil-minded as the Devil Pony). We would, of course, consider the entire trip our treat.

Please consider saying yes, my finest kind friend.

Merry Christmas.

Briggs

Well. You don’t get a proposition like that every day.

I finished reading the letter and went out to the dock to look out at the dusk gathering over the cove. The trees looked like skeletons against the gray cloud cover. The water shivered. I shivered.

A raft of five brant was feeding near the mouth of the cove, a couple of them standing in the shallows. What would seeing a pelican or a frigatebird be like instead of the kinds of birds and fish and other animals I saw all the time?

I’d have to give his offer some time to sink in.

But nothing is ever that simple, is it? My first thought was that I’d miss heading out on Marie A when I finally had some free time.

But I didn’t have to decide right away.

I watched one of the brant go tail-up to feed and listened to them make their burbling gabble and “cronk” call.

Then sleet and cold drizzle started to fall along with the darkness, and I went inside.

 

 

A Good Sign

Posted on by eddieatwell
Great horned owl

Great horned owl

Dad was on the boat before I went down to the dock. I went aboard to see why he wasn’t warming up the engine.

Dad (fiddling with the radio as usual): Not heading out today, Eddie. Staying on the beach.

Me: Not heading out? Why? Weather looks good.

Dad: No percentage in it. I’d have to fill the boat twice to pay for fuel and bait, not to mention insurance.

I shook my head.

Me: I don’t get it. We’ve been catching them like crazy.

Dad: Yeah. It’s a catch-22. The bugs are more plentiful than ever because there aren’t enough predators like codfish to feed on them. The problem with so many bugs is that the price just keeps dropping because there’s so much supply.

Me: So you’re going to wait till the price goes back up?

Dad: Looks like it. I may change my mind. Some of the other lobstermen are saying that bringing in more lobsters isn’t helping the situation. Besides, selling lobsters just to keep the traps wet doesn’t make much sense. I might take a few days and see if I can get a shine on that scallop dredge before the season ends.

Me: Are you going to use my skiff?

Dad: Yeah, like last year. Saves us from having to re-rig Marie A.

I went back out on deck and stood at the transom. Not hearing the diesel mumbling in the darkness or smelling the burnt rubber tang of exhaust in the cold air was strange. The boat creaked on her stern line.

I looked up at the stars and wondered what would happen if the price never went back up. How would Dad keep making a living at lobstering?

An owl hooted from out by the point—a great horned owl with its deep who-who, who-who-who call.

Who would be able to make a living at it, I thought. When the time came for me to make my own living, would I even have a chance to make a go of it?

I was looking at the Big Dipper, the reflections of the stars jiggling on the dark water before me, when a big meteor broke loose from the sky and dropped in a slow lob down and down till it disappeared behind the line of woods.

The sight of it made be feel better. I hadn’t seen more than a couple meteors flick across the sky during the Geminid meteor shower, and finally this was a good one. It almost took my breath away.

It had to be a good sign.

Didn’t it?